La Jolla is a smart seaside area, known for its rugged coastline. Trails wind past pine trees and sandstone canyons in Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve, while the 2 courses at world-renowned Torrey Pines Golf Course sit atop sea cliffs. La Jolla Cove has sweeping ocean views, and the Shell Beach tide pools are home to anemones and crabs. Posh boutiques and waterfront restaurants dot walkable La Jolla Village.

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La Jolla is surrounded on three sides by ocean bluffs and beaches and is located 12 miles (19 km) north of Downtown San Diego and 45 miles (72 km) south of the Orange County line.[The climate is mild, with an average daily temperature of 70.5 °F (21.4 °C).

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La Jolla is home to many educational institutions and a variety of businesses in the areas of lodging, dining, shopping, software, finance, real estate, bioengineering, medical practice and scientific research. The University of California, San Diego (UCSD), is located in La Jolla, as are the Salk Institute, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (part of UCSD), Scripps Research Institute, and the headquarters of National University (though its academic campuses are elsewhere).

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Attractions and Activities:

La Jolla is the location of Torrey Pines Golf Course, the site each January or February of a PGA Tour event formerly known as the Buick Invitational and since 2010, called the Farmers Insurance Open. Torrey Pines also hosted the 2008 U.S. Open, and will host the 2021 U.S. Open. Nearby are the de facto nude beach, Black's Beach, and the Torrey Pines Gliderport.

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Downtown La Jolla is noted for jewelry stores, boutiques, upmarket restaurants and hotels. Prospect Street and Girard Avenue are also shopping and dining districts. The Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1941, is located just above the waterfront in what was originally the 1915 residence of philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps. The museum has a permanent collection with more than 3,500 post-1950 American and European works, including paintings, works on paper, sculptures, photographic art, design objects and video works. The museum was renamed Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in 1990 to recognize its regional significance.

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Beaches and ocean access include Windansea Beach, La Jolla Shores, La Jolla Cove and Children's Pool Beach. For many years, La Jolla has been the host of a rough water swim at La Jolla Cove.

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In 2011, the La Jolla Community Foundation commissioned various artists to contribute to the scenery of the town, through various murals. Some of the artists that are featured in the series are John Baldessari, Julian Opie, and Kim MacConnel. There are 11 murals in the series, all of which will be on display for two years.

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Business and Media:

La Jolla (under the fictionalized name "Esmerelda") is the setting for Raymond Chandler's final Philip Marlowe novel, Playback, published in 1958. Chandler lived in La Jolla for the previous decade. La Jolla's Hotel del Charro becomes "Rancho Descansado" in the novel. A number of landmarks described can still be found today.

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La Jolla was home to the comic book publisher WildStorm Productions, from its founding by Jim Lee in 1993, until its closing in 2012 when DC Comics, which had purchased the publisher as an imprint in 1998, absorbed the company and moved the office to Burbank, California.

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La Jolla is the setting for the 2011 season of The Real World: San Diego, the twenty-sixth season of the long-running MTV reality television series.

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La Jolla is the base for the Sundt Memorial Foundation, a national organization aimed at discouraging youth from getting involved in drugs.

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La Jolla is mentioned in the Beach Boys' 1963 song Surfin' U.S.A. and in The Network's 2003 song Spike, as well as in Wilbur Soot's song of the same name.

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The Netflix sitcom Grace and Frankie is set in La Jolla, although exteriors are filmed in other parts of California.

 

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Notable People: 

La Jolla has been the home to many notable people, including prominent scientists, business people, artists, writers, surfers and performers.

 

See the complete list here.

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Sources: Wikipedia